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Zeinat Sedki (1956) زينات صدقى

This is a rare clip of Egyptian actress/comedienne Zeinat Sedki dancing. The scene is from the 1956 Egyptian comedy ‘Sahibat al Azama’ (The Great Lady) (صاحبة العصمة ) but more about the movie later, first the dancer.
Zeinat Sedki was born Zeinab Mohamed Mosaad in Alexandria in 1913. She was married at 15 then shortly afterwards divorced. To support herself she started working as a bellydancer at local weddings and moulids. Her family’s disapproval forced her to move to Syria for a time. On returning to Egypt she started working for Badi’a Masabni and her name was changed from Zeinab to Zeinat to avoid confusion with an actress with a similar name. Her film career took off and for many years she was regularly amongst the group of actors working with comedian Ismail Yassin in many of his movies. She died in 1978.
Back to this movie: ‘Sahibat Al Azama’ starred Ismail Yassin as Ghazel and Tahia Karioka as Munira, his rich second wife. The story of the film is that Ghazel and Munira decide to adopt a child and Ghazel ensures that the child is his son from his previous marriage to Zeinat Sedki’s character. Sedki then works as a nanny in her ex-husband’s house so she can still raise her son. When the upper class wife finds out, she poisons the son and frames his mother. Happy ending though as Munira is found guilt of the crime and we’re left with the feeling that the parents reunite. The excellent supporting cast includes Zeinat Sedki herself along with Hassan Fayek, Abdel Ghani El Nagdi and Abdel Hamid Zaky.
Zeinat Sedki’s philosophy of life was “Those who consider it (life) a comedy live longer as they enjoy each and every minute in their lives.”